A Paladin’s Steam Sale: Winter 2014 Day Four

Indies, Indies everywhere. It’s the fourth day of sales. This series is about recommending or cautioning you about Steam games that are on sale today based on the information I know about each one. I also try to recommend games that aren’t on the front page if I notice a good deal for them.

As a general reminder, you want to wait until the game is on a daily feature sale, flash sale or a community choice sale. All of which can be seen on the front page of Steam. These will be the cheapest sales you will find during this event. You should also keep an eye on HumbleBundle.com, Amazon.com and GreenManGaming.com as they will sometimes do even better sales than Steam for the same copy. I will try and make you aware of any significant ones I see. Another further note, I was made aware that Origin has a 20% off coupon for games. GMG also has a 20% off coupon for their games as well. So, if you’re looking to buy an expensive game, that’s one way to go. So, without further ado, let’s begin:

Portal 2: I have to wonder if there’s anyone that doesn’t own this one. $3.99 for this FPS puzzle game is a great deal. The main campaign is pretty good though it can feel bloated towards the end. I was never really a fan of the gel system they introduce at the end of it. The co-op campaign is a lot of fun as well but the obvious criticism is that neither campaign has any replayability. The Steam Workshop has over 350,000 puzzles for you to solve, so, that makes up for it. You can sink hundreds of hours into this one and still not finish it up thanks to the Workshop.

Shadow Warrior: This is the lowest Shadow Warrior has been on sale, the last time was on GOG.com for the same discount. It has an engaging melee combat system with its special moves and katana combat. However, the gun combat can be fairly medicore/boring at times. The graphics will probably blind you in how pretty & overwhelming they can be at times. The boss fights are also nothing but giant bullet sponges and feel a lot less epic than they should be. You’ll get at least 13 hours of content out of it. It’s got a lot of references to the game it’s reimagined from as well as other games in its genre. It’s pretty darn amusing.

Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna): The darling indie platformer of this year, I’ve seen some good stuff about this game. It’s intrigued me with the co-op aspects of the platforming, however, co-op is local only so that’s a shame. Still, its focus on the Alaska Native community is a nice change of pace from the usual. There were some comments about the controls being iffy and the game has been recently updated to address those concerns.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The hugely popular RPG by Bethesda is on sale again. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the best sale its been on and the DLC is only 50% off. Though while the game received a ton of good press, it is still plagued by bugs to this day as far as I’ve heard. And while it is graphically impressive with a huge overworld to explore, it doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. Still, I’ve seen much worse games you can spend your time & money on.

Alien: Isolation: On sale…yet again…ok. This is the 5th time it has been on sale this month. 50% off is the lowest this game is going to get this year. I personally am holding off buying it until all the DLC has been released for an eventual GOTY edition. You know it’s coming. After the notably awful Aliens: Colonial Marines, Alien: Isolation shows us that AAA devs can do atmospheric survival horror with the Alien license. To the surprise of many, including myself.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: I hate jump-scare games. Not because I’m scared of them but because I feel their tactics at scaring people are cheap. The game mechanics of the FNAF series have always been sketchy, with some people speculating that the game cheats at times to get that cheap scare out of you. It also seems borderline impossible to survive the five nights. Still, the real question is why anyone would work as a security guard at a place like this for five days. Furthermore, why is the secuirty guard needed when you have animatronics guarding the place anyway?! No, I haven’t played this series and probably never will. Oh by the way, the first one is 50% off. If you like being a masochist or something…

Spintires: It’s a simulator about large all-terrain Soviet vehicles offroading a lot. That’s the depth of my knowledge on this title. Its probably not as good as it sounds but what do I know. I’ll give the game some kudos for not picking a title like: Russian Offroading Simulator 2014.

Age of Mythology: Extended Edition: A classic RTS strategy game that got re-released on Steam this year. This is yet another RTS game I don’t know a lot about. I should really work on that. It seems Microsoft is trying to re-release its classic RTSes to develop interest in them. Which is weird seeing as how Microsoft’s attitude towards PC gaming has always been poor at best.

Warning and Caution for these Game Deals:

Spore: A really intriguing concept that was poorly executed. Best to just avoid this one.

I should note here that I’m going to try my hardest to get these posts out within the first couple of hours after the new deals are released. However, I am working irregular hours so it’s likely a few posts will get published late at night. The consolation is that these deals go for 48 hours so you have time to wait. So, check the previous day’s post if you want to know my opinion on those games.

Check back tomorrow for more steam sales commentary! Thanks for reading and supporting this series!

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About A Paladin & Schedule

Welcome to my Gaming Review website. I've been creating content on a regular basis for over six years now but there's been a change. I'm currently on hiatus while I'm employed at a different job because I can't do that job and do this blog. There's no way I can do both and remain unbiased. I do not have a return ETA at this time but I thank everyone for their support over the years. It means a lot.